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Effective Communication: How to Talk to Researchers about Their Research

Learn essential strategies for effective communication with researchers, including research terminology, finding researchers and their projects, and bridging the mindset gap. Join the Virtual Residency Workshop on June 3, 2019.

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Effective Communication: How to Talk to Researchers about Their Research

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  1. Effective Communication:How to Talk to Researchers about Their Research Henry Neeman, University of Oklahoma Director, OU Supercomputing Center for Education & Research (OSCER) Associate Professor, College of Engineering Adjunct Faculty, School of Computer Science XSEDE Campus Engagement Joint Co-Manager Virtual Residency Introductory/Intermediate Workshop 2019 Monday June 3 2018

  2. Outline How to Talk to Researchers: Research Terminology Researcher Types The Mindset Gap Things to Say to a Researcher How to Find Researchers How to Find Researchers’ Projects Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  3. How to Talk to Researchers: Research Terminology

  4. Is Oxygen a Metal? How many of you believe that oxygen is a metal? Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  5. Oxygen in Real Life Atomic number 8 Chalcogen Key element in life Also fire, rust, water etc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  6. Oxygen in Astronomy • The universe is made of the following: • Hydrogen • Atomic number 1 • 75% of all baryonic mass • Most stars are made of hydrogen plasma • Helium • Atomic number 2 • Noble gas (inert) • 24% of total elemental mass • Other: ~1% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  7. Planets etc What are planets made of? • Cores of iron, nickel etc • Earth’s core is 89% iron, 6% nickel, 5% other • Mantles of silicates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planets#Mass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth Rose Eveleth, “Barns Are Painted Red Because of the Physics of Dying Stars.” http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/barns-are-painted-red-because-of-the-physics-of-dying-stars-58185724/?utm_source=keywee-facebook.com&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=keywee&kwp_0=283306&kwp_4=1091891&kwp_1=506963 Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  8. So What’s a Metal? H He O https://chem.libretexts.org/Courses/College_of_Marin/Marin%3A_CHEM_114_-_Introductory_Chemistry_(Daubenmire)/04%3A_Atoms_and_Elements/4.6%3A_Looking_for_Patterns%3A_The_Periodic_Law_and_the_Periodic_Table http://user.astro.columbia.edu/~gbryan/Site/IGM_files/gas_density_z0.png To a chemist, “metals” have a very specific chemical definition. But, to an astronomer (especially a cosmologist), “metals” are anything that isn’t hydrogen or helium. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  9. Projection What happens if you put a mathematician, a psychologist and a movie producer into a room and ask them to discuss projection? Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  10. What Are Fluids? Colloquial definition: Liquids. Mom’s and physician’s definition: Something you should drink plenty of when you’re sick. https://www.zocdoc.com/answers/9591/does-drinking-fluids-help-when-you-have-a-cold Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  11. What Are Fluids? (cont’d) • Physical science & engineering definition: Not solids. • Computational Fluid Dynamics • The most popular fluid studied is air (Earth’s atmosphere). • “[A] substance, as a liquid or gas, that is capable of flowing and that changes its shape at a steady rate when acted upon by a force tending to change its shape.” – dictionary.com • Liquids are incompressible fluids. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  12. Scale At quantum scale during femtoseconds, how much does gravity matter? How about at cosmological scale over eons? Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  13. Science vs Engineering • Science is focused on discovery. • Engineering is focused on design. • In which case: • Is a design project research? • Do engineers do science research? • What is research about software? Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  14. CS or IT? What happens if a domain scientist refers to CS as IT? Wait, CS people do research? I thought they were just there to help everyone else with their real research … ? Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  15. Is Simulated Data Actually Data? I had a colleague in Chemical Engineering who told me that, if he referred to data from a simulation as “data” in front of his colleagues, he’d be laughed out of the discipline. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  16. Enterprise ITvsResearch Computing:Natural Enemies,or Natural Allies?

  17. Enterprise IT vs Research Computing Enterprise IT: HARDENED • Secure • Established technology • Best practices • 5 nines: 99.999% uptime = 5.25 minutes of downtime per year Research Computing: SQUISHY • Fast and flexible (turn on a dime) • Cutting edge technology (= broken) • In some cases, no such thing as best practices • 1.5 nines: 95% uptime = 18.25 days of downtime per year • This is the NSF’s standard, from NSF solicitation 17-558: “… [$60M NSF-funded] production resources should be unavailable as a result of scheduled and unscheduled maintenance no more than 5% of the time.” Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  18. Enterprise IT Example • On Aug 8 2016, Delta Air Lines experienced a power outage in their Atlanta data center that lasted 5 hours. • Cost: $150M ($1M every 2 minutes of downtime) https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/07/technology/delta-computer-outage-cost/ Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  19. Enterprise vs Research: Incentives • Suppose payroll is going out tomorrow, and the payroll system goes down tonight. • On payroll day, what happens on the Enterprise IT people who are accountable for the outage? • Therefore, what must Enterprise IT people do to stay in business? • Suppose Research Computing isn’t on the cutting edge, and so proposals from the institution are less competitive. • Eventually, what will happen to the Research Computing team? • Therefore, what must Research Computing people do to stay in business? Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  20. Enterprise vs Research: How to Resolve? • Research Computing can afford to make mistakes: A system that’s mostly up but crashes occasionally is fine. • 1 day of HPC downtime = 10-100 lost grad student days • 1 grad student = ~$59K/yr fully loaded with fringe+tuition+Indirect => 100 grad student days = ~$16K productivity loss => ~$300-$1600 productivity loss per research group • Cost of 5 Nines vs 1.5 Nines: 5-10x, but budgets are fixed – so the actual cost is cutting computing-intensive and data-intensive research productivity by that factor. • Therefore: Let the machine go down from time to time, as a tradeoff for having more (but less resilient) resources, to maximize research productivity per year, at the cost of occasional lost days. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  21. Research is the Enterprise Testbed Research Computing has only limited best practices. But, technologies currently being adopted by Research Computing (e.g., Software Defined Networking) are likely to become enterprise requirements in a few to several years. So, let Enterprise IT watch Research Computing make mistakes, and use those observations to develop best practices for Enterprise IT. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  22. Researcher Types

  23. Researcher Types • Faculty • Tenure-Track Faculty • Tenured Faculty • Research Faculty • Staff • Postdocs Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  24. Tenure-Track Faculty At research-intensive institutions: • Incentive Structure: I need to publish lots of papers, bring in lots of grant money and graduate lots of students, or I’m fired. • Need: I need stuff to work now and keep working reliably. • Timeline • I have 7 years (typical tenure-track duration), BUT • I have 6 years (the 7th year is finding a job elsewhere if I don’t get tenure here), BUT • I have 5 years (the 6th year is when my materials are evaluated), BUT • I have 4 ½ years, because it typically takes a journal article about 6 months from being submitted to being published. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  25. Tenured Faculty At research-intensive institutions: Incentive Structure: I need to publish lots of papers, bring in lots of grant money and graduate lots of students, or I won’t get a raise and I won’t get a named chair. Need: I need stuff to work now and keep working reliably. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  26. Research Faculty If I don’t bring in grant money, I’m laid off. I need to publish a lot to keep bringing in grant money. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  27. Postdocs I need to publish a lot or I’ll lose my postdoc position. I need to learn how to get lots of grant money, and even actually get some of my own, so I can get a permanent position. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  28. Students • My first goal is to graduate. • Anything that delays graduation costs me money: • I may or may not have an assistantship. • While I’m in school, I’m giving up that many years of salary and benefits. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  29. Probability of Success • National Science Foundation, FY2018: 24% overall • Biosciences (BIO): 25% • Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE): 23% • Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC): 32% • Education & Human Resources (EHR): 21% • Engineering (ENG): 19% • Geosciences (GEO): 37% • Mathematical & Physical Sciences (MPS): 29% • Social, Behavioral & Economic (SBE): 23% • Office of the Director: 27% • Funding is governed by the Law of Large Numbers: You have to submit lots of proposals to get any funding. http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/awdfr3/default.asp Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  30. Probability of Success • National Science Foundation, FY2018: 24% overall • EPSCoR jurisdictions (23.1%): ND/OK 16%, AL 17%, KS/NV/SD 18%, ID 19%, AR/KY 20%, MS/WV/WY 21%, LA 22%, NE/SC 23%, NH 27%, DE 28%, ME/PR 30%, MT 31%, HI/VT 33%, RI 37%, AK 38%, VI 55% (11 proposals), Guam 0% (1 proposal) • Non-EPSCoR jurisdictions (24.4%): FL/MO/OH/TN 19%, NM 20%, AZ/IA/TX/VA 21%, IN/MI/UT 22%, GA/PA 23%, NY 24%, CT 25%, MD/NC/NJ/WA 26%, IL/OR 27%, CA/CO 28%, MA/MN/WI 29%, DC 38% • NOTE: TN, MO, NM, IA, UT recently graduated from EPSCoR. • Funding is governed by the Law of Large Numbers: You have to submit lots of proposals to get any funding. http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/awdfr3/default.asp Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  31. The Mindset Gap

  32. The Mindset Gap • In the olden days – say, 10 years ago – we used to say that our typical new Cyberinfrastructure user came from a Windows desktop or laptop background. • Those days are long gone …. • Nowadays, we say that our typical new user comes from an iOS or Android background. • How has that changed our job? Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  33. Mental Distance • What’s the mental distance between a handheld vs Linux, command line, remote, shared, batch computing? • Installing software • Handheld: Tap 3 times. • Large scale: EasyBuild if you’re lucky, configure/make with modest dependencies if you’re unlucky, bizarre random weirdness in practice. • Installing storage • Handheld: Buy a card for $10-50, pop it into the slot, the OS automatically recognizes it and starts using it. • Large scale: RFP, bid evaluation, configuration, purchase, deployment, maintenance, decommissioning. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  34. What’s the Cost of Storage? • Handheld: tens or hundreds of dollars (which gets you tens or hundreds of GB). • Laptop: tens or hundreds of dollars (which gets you TB of spinning disk or GB/TB of SSD). • Large scale (per copy) • ~1 PB raw tape: ~$6K • ~1 PB raw spinning disk : ~$63K (ultra-cheap version) • ~1 PB raw SSD: ~$228K (ultra-cheap version) Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  35. Things to Say to a Researcher

  36. Cost “This other way of doing it is cheaper than how you’re currently doing it.” “For the same cost, it could be so much better.” Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  37. Control “You get to decide how to use your piece.” “You can share it with whoever you want.” Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  38. Administration “Your students won’t have to spend their time taking care of this.” Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  39. How to Find Researchers

  40. Where are the CDS&E Researchers? Go to your institution’s website. Click on Academics. Search for departmental websites. On each departmental website, find the list of faculty (the link is usually “Faculty” or “People”). Read their research descriptions. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  41. Keywords to Look For Computational Numerical Parallel (especially in CS) Informatics For Chemistry, look for Computational Chemists, Physical Chemists and Biochemists. There are plenty of others – over time you’ll develop a feel for it. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  42. Contact Them! • Contact those faculty. • Tell them what your role is. • If it’s for a proposal, tell them: • what the program is; • what the due date is; • how much money is on the table. • Ask them what their computational/storage/network/whatever needs are. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  43. Go to New Faculty Meet-n-Greets Does your institution have events for new faculty? Go to them! Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  44. Visit Them! • Make an appointment to visit with them. • Even better, offer to take them to lunch. • If you can get your institution to pay for the lunch, even better. • Ask them questions: • At a high level, what’s your research about? • What are the computing-intensive and/or data-intensive aspects of your research? • Suppose you had an infinitely large, infinitely fast computer. What research would you want to do? Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  45. The Intake Interview

  46. Specific, Open-Ended Questions These are questions whose answers you don’t really care about – but they’ll lead to useful discussions. What language is your software written in? Is it parallelized? Who wrote it? What operating system(s) has it been run on? Briefly describe the science problem it's used for. Briefly describe the numerical method or algorithm. Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  47. Questions cont’d • How big is the memory footprint when running? • How many timesteps/iterations do you plan to run per experiment? • How many such experiments do you plan to run per year? • Does it have no input, a little bit of input or a lot of input? • Does it have a little bit of output or a lot of output? • Many small disk I/O transactions, or a few big ones? • etc … Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  48. How to Find Researchers’ Projects

  49. Know Their Research • If you’ve already talked to the researchers, you probably have a pretty good idea of who’s got big data and/or big compute needs. • Now you need to find out specifically how much Cyberinfrastructure capacity they need. • You can always ask, but you’ll get more information if you’re writing an equipment proposal. • “I’m going to get you free goodies. Please send me a one page project summary plus the following details.” Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

  50. Equipment Proposal Questions #1 • How much funding does your research currently have? How much is pending? Planned? From what sources? • How many faculty, staff, postdocs, grad students and undergrads on your team will be served by this equipment? • What is the intellectual merit of your research? • What makes your research transformational/innovative? • What’s the importance/research impact of your research? • What are the broader impacts? • Education/training • Underrepresented populations (minorities, women, disabled etc) • Economic/social impact Effective Communication Virtual Residency Workshop 2019, Mon June 3 2019

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